Book Review: Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

A book about a tormented mother-daughter relationship set in the 1980s India, Burnt Sugar (also published as Girl in White Cotton Dress), the debut novel by India-born Dubai-based Avni Doshi is a fine exquisite discourse on memory and memories, how we build them, how we try to forget. 

´We actively make memories (...) And we make them together. We remake memories, too, in the image of what other people remember´.

Antara - the daughter of Tara, the name meaning the opposite of Tara - is suddenly faced with the early onset of Alzheimer by her mother. An experimental artist without a proper day job, she facing her own rebelious spirit against her even more rebelious mother but also her own onsetting to motherhood. 

The story is going back and forth from the present to the current day of the story, through small revelations and details that, as in the case of an experimental art work, do may change completely the overall meaning of the work of art. The observations about art, medical science - particularly brain science - as well as the everyday interactions between the women characters do add a special charm to the storytelling. There are ambiance details, particularly the life in the ashram, as well as depictions of school cruelty, mostly perpetrated by women too. 

Burnt Sugar, a relatively short novel, shortlisted for 2020 Booker Prize, is a story about women lives and their, sometimes, unachieved potential. A book about the fragility of life and impossible yet fully acceptable feelings, well researched and beautifully written. The thoughts about experimental art and the art of Antara itself were very important and inspirational for me, and they may stay with me way longer. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: The Trees by Percival Everett

 ´History is a motherfucker´.

Shortlisted for this year edition of Booker Prize, The Trees by Percival Everett is an ironic story based on a terrible episode in the history of racial relations: the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Likewise, the action of the book is set in Money, Mississippi, only that the victims of the series of lynchings are white. They also bear hilarious name, of the kind usually attributed to black protagonists: Granny C., Junior Junior, Wheat Bryant. 

The search for the culprits is done by black officers employed by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, but they are faced with an additional challenge: on the site of the crimes, which are multiplying from a day to another, a mysterious black man corpse appears and disappears. It´s the same over and over again.

The irony is intelligent and the references are obvious, however the literary layer involving the story development and the narrative, as well as character development. The Trees demonstrates that one can write about race and racial dissent in so many literary ways. Also, it´s a good reminder that irony can be such a powerful literary weapon.

Rating: 4 stars